


Here With Me

by guineapiggie



Series: The High-School AU [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M, I promise, Long-Distance Relationship, not half as angsty as the summary suggests
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 15:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: I miss you.He doesn’t say it. She knows. If he says it, it’ll just make it worse – it’s not like she can do anything about the fact that he’s here and she’s there.It’s not forever, he tells himself.





	Here With Me

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a quick idea for a little Christmas fluff that went (slightly) out of hand, all playing into my headcanons for these two after high school.  
> Title from Dido's _Here With Me_

She hates to admit it, she really does, but Jyn Erso is crying in public, at the airport to add to the cliché. And she’s not even saying goodbye to anybody.

She is standing in front of the _departures_ table, ticket to New Haven in hand, trying to somehow wipe the tears off her face in a motion that looks like she was just tired, or casually pushing her bangs out of her eyes.

She supposes that turns out about as convincing as it sounds, because an older lady across the hall is already starting to throw her worried glances.

 _Jesus_. This is fucking pathetic, however good the reason – so _what_ if she hasn’t seen her boyfriend in a little over five months, annoyingly well documented thanks to the stamps in her passport, she cannot be standing here in _public,_ silently crying like a kid that’s lost its parents. Just because the flights on the board updated to show a flight at the very bottom she would currently give an arm and a leg to take instead of the one home.

She flicks through the pages of her passport absent-mindedly, counting the stamps. Four and a half years. Ten stamps, the first two in quick succession and that long gap between seven and eight that she can’t afford to think about. Not when she’s already bawling at the goddamn airport of Philadelphia, _mother of –_

She needs to get a grip. Seriously. There is a ticket in her hand, printed and paid for, and she isn’t in some cheesy rom-com on the telly on Christmas Eve.

She’s going to get on that plane and see her father, because she spends Christmas with her father, always has. Because Cassian said he was way behind on his studies and wouldn’t have a minute to spare either way. Because in the end, it’s just a goddamn annual holiday and not a big deal, and Christmas was going to suck for him this year no matter where or with whom he spends it. Because they agreed it was better for her to save up and be able to stay longer in the spring.

So what if she hasn’t seen him in five months, almost six. So what if it’s almost Christmas. So what if his birthday isn’t far behind, and so what if he’ll be alone for both because his flatmate is at home in Chihuahua and his grandmother died early in Autumn and so what if –

She closes her eyes and kicks her suitcase. It rolls a few inches away, then tips and falls over with a small _thunk,_ and she curses under her breath.

She takes a few deep breaths, opens her eyes and stares at the departures table for a bit longer, then reaches for her phone.

“Papa?”

“Hi stardust,” he says absent-mindedly, and she hears papers rustling in the background. “When’s your flight?”

“Papa,” she repeats miserably, and the rustling stops. She takes another breath and announces, voice somewhat firmer: “I can’t come home for Christmas this year. I’m really sorry.”

“Did your flight get cancelled?” he asks.

That’s a nice excuse, she thinks with a sigh. One that wouldn’t make her such a selfish daughter.

“No.”

He’s quiet for a moment and she adds, in a dreadful pleading tone: “I can’t – it’s _Christmas,_ papa, and he…” She bites her tongue before she can say _he’s alone at Christmas,_ because if she goes through with this, then her father will be alone at Christmas.

“I just mean… his grandma died and he says he’s okay but… I can’t do that.”

“You’re right,” her father says softly. He doesn’t _sound_ hurt, and he’s a terrible liar, so she’ll believe him. “You’re right, you should go.”

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, but he cuts her off.

“Jyn, you’re twenty-two. You can do what you want. Just next time, cancel these things a couple days earlier because now I’ll have to pester the neighbours with leftover food, alright?”

She grimaces. “Sorry.”

“Tell me when you land,” he says warmly, and she nods, forgetting he can’t see her.

“Okay. Thank you, papa,” she mutters.

“Stardust,” he says with a sigh, “if you were really going to let your boyfriend celebrate Christmas with his textbooks after the woman who raised him died, I might have disowned you.”

She grins. “I love you, papa.”

“Good. Because I’m freezing half of that bird and you’re eating all of it when you visit me the next time, I don’t care how long it takes,” he mutters, but she can hear him smile. “Have a safe flight.”

She grins down at her suitcase. “Hey, do you think I can just give him your gift?”

“If you think he needs _iPhone for Dummies._ ”

“How do you –“

“Because they sent _me_ the bill, Jyn,” he replies flatly. “You should really change that home address someday.”

She grimaces. “Yeah, no, you really need that book, though. Bye, papa.”

He chuckles. “I did manage to answer your call this time, didn’t I? See you, stardust.”

She hangs up, then runs the back of her hand over her eyes and makes her way towards one of the help desks.

“If I return a ticket for a flight that leaves in ninety minutes, how likely am I to get any money back?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the woman says and reaches for the ticket, but Jyn places a hand on it and shakes her head.

“Actually, that can wait – I need you to get me to Mexico City in the next ten hours. If you can, a way that doesn’t totally bankrupt me would be really great.”

 

* * *

 

His phone whirrs and he looks up from his book, then blinks down at the unpleasantly bright screen. The sun has disappeared behind the buildings across the street, shrouding his room in sombre twilight. He didn’t really notice that.

He should probably turn on the ceiling lights before sunset, if he can be bothered to get up at some point, that is.

He frowns at the time, does the math in his head, once, twice, then picks up the phone.

“I thought you were on the plane right now.”

“Uh, yeah,” she says slowly. “My flight got delayed. As usual. Probably snow.”

“Probably,” he replies absent-mindedly and stares down at the narrowly-written columns of text. Hearing her voice is really nice, but… he’s had nothing but that for far too long, and having that voice in his ear and see and touch nothing but his thrice-damned textbook is driving him crazy.

“I was thinking we could skype when I get home,” she says. “Papa will have made dinner, I guess, but… in five hours it’ll be… ten o’clock? For you?”

“Nine,” he corrects quietly, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment and flexing his fingers, stiff from holding the pen for so long. “Sounds good.”

She sighs. “Well, you _don’t_ sound good.”

“I’m tired, that’s all,” he mutters. “I read over two-hundred pages and I don’t think I remember a single sentence.” It was supposed to be a joke, but it comes out pitiful and altogether too honest, and he could bite off his tongue. Damn it, it’s hard enough just to miss each other, why does he have to make her _worry_? Worry even more than she already does, that is, since his grandmother passed.

Another sigh. “Cassian, your exam is over a month away –“

“Yes, and I’m going to fail it,” he bites back, prompting a third sigh and another mental slap.

_Stop feeling so fucking sorry for yourself, Andor._

“No, you won’t,” she replies, very firmly and a touch too loudly for his overworked nerves. “You knew half of that stuff before your course even started, bloody overachiever,” she adds lamely and he grimaces.

“I’ll let my professor know that I know enough to impress my girlfriend, then,” he mutters, leafing through the pages, running his fingers over the frayed edge of the photograph sticking out between the pages. It’s been his bookmark since he left school.

Only for the books on his desk, obviously – he doesn’t want to risk losing it.

Absent-mindedly he calculates how much he still has to read – only two-hundred and fifty-six more pages.

Piece of cake.

He wonders idly if his last sentence even made any sense.

“Go to bed, Cassian,” she says softly, and he sighs.

His body wants to, but firstly, if he doesn’t make it through at least those fifty-six next pages today, he thinks he might have a nervous breakdown; secondly, it’s not even dark outside – if his grandmother was around, she’d personally kick him out of bed again. And, most of all, he’s been in a shit mood all day and now he has her voice in his ear, and if he has to lie in his cold bed staring at this room filled with nothing but loose notes and textbooks… he could never ever stop feeling sorry for himself then.

And that too is not something he was raised to do.

“I have to finish this,” he gives back quietly, running his fingers along the spine of the book.

“You say that entirely too much, you know,” she replies gently and he laughs, despite himself.

“Because I’m always behind.”

“Because you don’t take breaks, idiot,” she replies drily. “I’ll see you later, okay? They called up my gate. Take a nap.”

If his eyes water slightly, it’s the poor light, and the having stared at a book for what feels like a century. He clears his throat. “Have a safe flight.”

_I miss you._

He doesn’t say it. She knows. If he says it, it’ll just make it worse – it’s not like she can do anything about the fact that he’s here and she’s there.

It’s not forever, he tells himself. Nineteen, out of seventy. Very doable, in theory.

“Thanks,” she mutters, and hangs up.

She sounded good, he decides as he gets to his feet to turn on the lights and pour himself a glass of water. They’ve had a lot of depressing, horrible calls lately, full of long pauses, one of them (or both) pretending they weren’t crying, or because one of them just fell asleep or –

No, she seemed okay. Happy, even. She hasn’t seen her father in a bit, two months or so. It’s not six, and it doesn’t change the temperature of the bed, but he gets it.

He returns to the desk, stares at the book.

Fifty-six – no, he can get in more, eighty at least. Then he’ll get to see her face, pixelated and lagging but better than nothing. Then he can sleep.

Five hours. Eighty pages.

Less than two more years, if all goes well. If he gets through this book on time, for starters.

He sighs, and gets up again to make more coffee.

 

* * *

 

Another tenant of the building is just leaving as she gets out of the taxi and holds the door open for her when she calls out to him. He throws her a highly amused little smirk as he leaves and she’s not sure whether she should chalk that up to her Spanish or to the fact she is wearing the completely wrong clothes for the mild weather, down to the boots and the fur lining the hood of her jacket.

She decides the hallway a few floors down from his flat looks neutral enough that he won’t recognise it, if she holds the phone close enough to her face.

Turns out there wasn’t much need to worry about it, because when she switches on the camera the image is so dark her face is the only thing even remotely visible.

“Jesus, are you hiding in the closet?” he asks when the call finally patches through, and she grins.

“No. The lamp in my room just gave out, so this is about as good as we get, sorry,” she replies innocently, careful to keep her voice down – she vividly remembers how insanely thin the walls in this building are.

“I mean, unless you want me to sit in the living room with papa.”

He throws her a thin smile, barely visible through the low quality feed.

 “How is he?”

“He’s good,” she replies, a little _too_ cheerful. Damn it. She’s been with her father for every single Christmas of her goddamn life –

But then the smile on Cassian’s lips, barely there as it is, slips for a moment. He looks, if possible, even more worn than he sounded on the phone a few hours ago, and her chest tightens a little. She made the right choice, no doubt about it.

“Got the tree up?”

“No, he didn’t get to that yet,” she mutters – balance of probability, that’s not even a lie.

“Send me a picture when you do,” he says in a would-be cheerful voice that isn’t improved by the poor sound quality.

“So you can tell me it’s not symmetrical?”

Again, that damn smile. If he can’t even fake that properly, that is a _really_ bad sign. “How was your flight?”

“Took ages,” she mutters, and decides she’s played this stupid game for long enough. Feeling for the rail with her left while trying to hold the phone still, she adds:

“You really want to nothing for Christmas?”

He scoffs. “An extra month to study would be great.”

“An extra month,” she repeats, smiling faintly, and slowly feels her way up the stairs. “I’m sure I can make it _feel_ like at least an extra year. Would that help?”

“You’re already doing that,” he mutters, with a slightly improved smile on his lips. “So not really.”

She reaches the top of the stairs and adjusts the camera. “Okay. Don’t be mad, but –“ She gives up on trying to hide the slight grin on her face. “I kind of got you something anyway.”

“Jyn, that’s not fair, you can’t say we –“

“I said don’t be mad,” she repeats gently, and he shakes his head.

“And I said it’s not fair if you –“

“We can talk about that,” she says and he throws her a dark look.

“There’s nothing to talk about, I don’t _need_ anything, Jyn, and now I feel like an ass for not getting you anything.”

She grins. “I meant we can talk about that if you let me in.”

He frowns at her for a moment, and she can practically see the wheels turn, pinpoint the moment where he seems to decide something got lost in translation.

“What?”

“Open the door for me? Please?”

He doesn’t get up. “Jyn, I’m in a really shit mood, don’t play jokes on me,” he says indignantly.

She sighs, then hangs up without another word and knocks on the door instead. “Cassian?”

On the other end of the door, there is silence.

Then, after a minute or so, she hears slow footsteps, and soft but extensive swearing, and barely manages to stifle her laughter before the handle turns and the door opens.

She’s never seen a human being look as baffled as her boyfriend does for the following sixty seconds.

His eyes flicker over her coat and knitted jumper, down to the suitcase at her feet, then back up.

“You gonna ask me in?” she asks with a faint smile.

“You were really going to go to New Haven,” he mutters, still sounding confused, reaching out to tug at her coat, and she nods.

“I changed my mind,” she answers softly.

“What – what about your father?”

She grimaces. “He’s not _happy,_ but I think he understands.”

A smile tugs at his lips, finally. “Changed your mind _at the airport_? You’re crazy.”

She hums in response and returns his smile. He’s stepped closer, hand twisting in her coat, pulling her towards him.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he mutters, shaking his head, so close now their noses almost touch. His eyes are so warm, the damn video feed never manages to do them any justice.

God damn it, pulling this stunt is worth it already.

“Jyn, you’re gonna miss your favourite holiday. The tree and all that,” he says softly, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t care,” she mutters and kisses him, lightly, on the corner of his lips. “Seriously. It’s just a tree.”

“But –“

“I want _this_ , you idiot.” She kisses him again, grinning. “Can I come in now? Because I’m really warm in this jacket.”

He reaches around her to pick up her suitcase, a faint smirk on his lips now.

“Okay. Okay, if you want to come in and take your clothes off,” he mutters into her ear, “I’m not gonna stop you.”

She snorts and shoves past him. “Wow, and I thought _my_ not getting any for half a year was showing.”

He closes the door behind them and shrugs, then leans against the doorframe and looks at her, still with that disbelieving smile on his face.

Jyn takes off her jacket and unceremoniously drops it on the floor. “Well, come here,” she says, grinning back at him. “Don’t see why I should do all the work myself.”

He pushes off the wall obediently, crosses the narrow corridor in two long steps. She was expecting a kiss, but instead he pulls her tight in a single, unrefined motion, face hidden at her neck. There are a handful more swear words, then, very softly –

“It’s good you’re here.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, burying her nose in his soft hair. “Yeah.”

She wraps her arms around him for a moment, taking deep breaths for the first time in too long. She’d almost forgotten the smell of his clothes, forgot how warm he feels against her. The damn phone just doesn’t cut it, _God,_ she’s missed him –

After a little while, one of them lets go far enough for Jyn to thread her fingers into his hair and press a kiss against his jaw, then his lips. She means to be gentle, take her time, really does, but _fucking hell,_ it’s been _so long –_

“Clothes,” she mutters breathlessly against his skin, shoving him towards his room, “ _off_. Now.”

He nods. “Good plan. I like it.”

“We have done enough fucking talking,” she growls, impatiently tugging at his shirt that just won’t come off. “Just _help_ me –“

He grins and pulls it off, shaking his head at her, but she just throws him a dark look before choosing to convey her thoughts by a long, hard kiss instead.

She has eight goddamn days, and absolutely doesn’t intend to waste her time.

 

 

 


End file.
